


Death, like Love, Waits for No One

by spookyserpent



Series: Dying is Easy, Living is So Much Harder [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Family Feels, I Demand A Sequel, Immortal Husbands, M/M, Mentions healing, Technically major character death, They love each other, but - Freeform, lots of death, poetry references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:40:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25228477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookyserpent/pseuds/spookyserpent
Summary: Even then, enemies at the very start, there was always a moment of fear that the other would stay dead on the ground. At the time, they both ignored the feeling. They played it off as annoyance that the fight would be over.Years, decades, centuries later, they still wait for one another.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: Dying is Easy, Living is So Much Harder [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1829095
Comments: 62
Kudos: 856
Collections: Ditzybea's Favorites





	Death, like Love, Waits for No One

**Author's Note:**

> I loved this movie SO MUCH!!
> 
> All of their relationships were beautiful and I have already watched it three times. 
> 
> Yes, I have a problem.

Back when they were on opposite sides, trying and failing to kill one another, the only moment of peace shared between them was after they both died. Maybe it was honour, or simply exhaustion, but both men would give their enemy time to properly heal before they would clash again. 

That’s how it started. On a battlefield, during a siege, two soldiers found each other and then for five blurring, monotonous days, they slaughtered one another. 

The first time they had ever died, by the other’s hands no less. Nicolò had slashed at Yusuf’s throat just as Yusuf had buried his blade between Nicolò’s ribs. Collapsing side by side, their blood spilling together, their last breaths exhaled in the space between them. 

Nicolò felt the thankfulness of striking his enemy before it washed away with the bite of the blade slicing him open, scraping his bones. 

He finds out later, much later when they understand each other’s language and don’t mistake touches for violence, that they both saw the same thing. The pain, burning, choking on it and then a white light, like the sun shining directly in their eyes and then darkness. Nothingness. Yusuf tells him as much over a campfire, when sleeping next to the enemy is now sleeping next to a friend. 

Then, of course, the light came flooding back, along with the pain. 

Yusuf woke first, spluttering and coughing hands gripping his throat. His freshly healed throat. He had turned to look at his dead enemy, confusion at being alive - Resurrected? Reincarnated? - and relief that his enemy was also not rising. 

Only then, Nicolò had stirred, groaning and cursing in a string of words that Yusuf only knew because of his merchant days. He had watched as the man had grabbed at his side to find no injury. 

Yusuf must’ve made a noise because Nicolò turned and that was the only respite before they killed each other again. Again and again and again. 

Still, each time they woke, there was always a second or two between them. When the wounds were especially aggressive and horrendous, they took longer to heal, to stitch back together into unbroken skin, tissue and bone. 

They wait for each other. Yusuf taking his extra second to cup his hands in a fountain and drink. Nicolò taking his extra second to rest against a tree. 

Even then, enemies at the very start, there was always a moment of fear that the other would stay dead on the ground. At the time, they both ignored the feeling. They played it off as annoyance that the fight would be over. 

Years, decades, centuries later, they still wait for one another. 

Now, though, those times are clearly anxiousness and concern, a spike of fear that this time will be the last time. 

When Nicky stays down a second too long, Joe can feel the air being punched from his lungs, his hands shaky as he hovers them over Nicky’s prone, dead body. 

When Joe stays down a second too long, Nicky can feel bile climbing in his throat, his eyes already tearing up, his lips cooing to him in Italian, calling to him, pleading with him to just open his eyes. 

Joe can still recall the first time they fought side by side with Andy - Andromache, then - and the way she seemed to freeze while Joe crouched by Nicky’s slain form. 

“He will wake,” she promised him and Joe has shook his head, eyes not drifting from the bloody mess of Nicky’s chest. 

Even after Nicky had shot up, hand already outstretched for Joe, he still couldn’t stop the swell of relief in his stomach. 

“We never know,” he had told her, hauling Nicky to his feet, passing him his sword. “We cannot leave each other.” 

“Why?” She had seemed so confused and intrigued with blood splattered across her face, hair tied up into an intricate knot. 

Nicky hadn’t understood then but after all this time, he can understand Andy’s emotions. She had spent so long without someone, had watched two of her immortal family die and be taken from her, that their story was strange. 

Two men, both alike in dignity. In a village that no longer exists, may they lay their scene. From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. 

They had fought against one another, killed one another and then joined together. 

“Two, like us... uh, different, are better together than not,” Yusuf had said to Nicolò, in Nicolò’s dialect albeit a bit broken and strained, while they lay opposite one another, the campfire a barrier between them. At this point, they still did not trust one another but neither could kill the other. 

But that is why they wait. If they started together, they will end together. Both would rather be by the other’s side than carrying on the good fight. 

After the first few times, Andy became used to the odd touches, the quick looks, the fluid way they interacted in a fight, like one body and one mind reacting. 

Whenever they entered anywhere, their eyes would drift to each other first. Whenever they slept, they always ended up pressed against each other. 

Nicky can still hear Andy commenting to Booker - Sebastien then - when he asked about them, their relationship, the effortless way they fought together. “Nicky breathes, Joe breathes. Joe moves, Nicky follows. In the centuries I’ve known them, they’ve never separated.”

So now, while holed up with Nile and Andy, recently mortal Andy, they both can’t stop the smile at Nile’s looks. She means nothing of them, she’s just curious, and Joe has always been a hopeless romantic. 

“He is the other half of my soul,” he says to her, when she watches their interaction after Nicky left to scout out a possible hide-y hole and came back only to drag his fingers through Joe’s hair. 

“More poetry?” Nicky replies, in Italian, referencing Joe’s declaration in the confides of an armoured van. “Because you know how much I love your confessions.” 

Joe grins at him. “I would wait for him for centuries, millennia, if it meant I could spend a single second with him. We started this together, we shall end this together. Whenever that is, it does not matter. So long as we are by the other’s side.” 

Nicky kisses him, hard and passionate like the first time, always like the first time. The battle had finished but Nicolò had stayed down longer, too long. Yusuf didn’t know what to do with himself. He had panicked when he couldn’t spot Nicolò. They didn’t know that deep, body wounds took a little while longer to heal. 

He had called his name, praying that it didn’t end like this. He remembered screaming to the stormy sky, so much like Nicolò's eyes, “no one is allowed to kill this man but me! You hear me! He is mine!” 

Then a hand had shot up from between bodies and Yusuf had darted over, pulling Nicolò to his feet. Blood smeared his angular face, his arm had gripped the back of Yusuf’s uniform like his life depended on it. Their faces had been inches apart and Yusuf couldn’t bring himself to let go, from where his arms were braced across Nicolò's back. 

Nicolò had looked at his lips, back up to his eyes. An expression, one of pain and longing and everything that Yusuf had felt since that first night they slept side by side, crossed his face. 

Before he could hesitate Yusuf had pressed a quick, chaste kiss to Nicolò's bloody lips and then moved away. Turning his head, his entire body, and making a hasty get away. His only thought being that Nicolò couldn’t exactly kill him. 

“No,” Nicolò had said, grabbing at his wrist tugging him backwards, “more like this.” 

Then Nicolò’s hands were gripping his hair, his cheek, his uniformed back as their lips met again. This time with force and power, certainty and conviction. Yusuf had been breathless then. 

Joe is breathless now as Nicky pulls away. 

“Holy shit,” Nile mutters, Andy laughing in the background, “you’re soulmates!” 

Nicky looks to Joe, an indulgent smile on his face. “Yes. I suppose we are.” 

They will wait for one another until that fateful time comes when the clock runs out, when one of them stops healing, stops waking up. 

But they both have a sneaking suspicion that will never happen. 

They were nobodies before they met. They were enemies, soldiers told to kill the man who believed in something different, who looked different. They killed one another over and over until they realised the person they were fighting was the one that gave them a reason to live. 

When that time comes, the clock ticking down, the wounds no longer stitching together, they will both go down and will both stay down. Together. Until the very end. 

Looking at each other now, the same thoughts are reflected back. Joe presses a kiss to Nicky’s palm as he drops to his forearms, standing at the back of the couch, head resting atop Joe’s. 

“Nile,” Nicky says, content and happy and complete. 

She looks up, Andy already smiling from beside her. Nicky knows what she sees and whilst the pain of Quynh is still fresh, and Booker’s absence a splinter that they can’t pick out, one that they all miss so dearly, it’s clear what they are, what they’ve all become. A family. One in which she is untroubled with being mortal around. One in which she knows she will die in the presence of. 

Joe winks at Andy and carries on from Nicky, seamlessly, easily, already knowing what and where Nicky’s thoughts are, to Nile. “Have you ever been to Malta?”

**Author's Note:**

> Reference to Shakespeare because Nicky and Joe are definitely Romeo and Juliet. 
> 
> If you want me to write more, just let me know :) 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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